At the national level, housing affordability is down slightly from last month but up from a year ago. Mortgage rates were down from last month at 4.30 percent this April, and down 7.7 percent compared to 4.66 percent a year ago.

Home prices are rising at a modest pace, at 3.6 percent nationally as of April 2019. However, the pace of price appreciation varies significantly across metro areas, with highly expensive metros ($700,000 or over) showing price declines and less expensive metro areas, usually with the median list price at $400,000 or below, are showing strong price gains.